Church of England rev Jamie Franklin sits down with author and public intellectual Mary Harrington to talk about Mary's new book Feminism Against Progress. Describing herself as a "reactionary feminist" Mary argues that the the direction feminism has taken in more recent years has benefitted nobody except a small group of elite women and that we need to recover the concept of interdependence between men and women. She is a subtle yet outspoken critic of post-humanist thought and the application of the concept of freedom to the human body both in terms of the denial of sex differences and in the reconstruction of the human body along the lines suggested by transgender ideologues.
In a wide-ranging conversation, we spoke about the reality of hierarchy and power and how these can be turned for good, the difference between a feminism of freedom and a feminism of interdependence, how we can reconceive the concept of freedom in the context of marriage and family life, the role that Christianity can play in such a reconception, feminism after liberalism, the place of men and the danger of post-Christian patriarchy, internet mentorship and real world relationships, and the question of abortion for reactionary feminism.
Timings:
00:00-01:51 Welcome and Intro - Feminism Against Progress
01:52 -08:28 Critical Theory at the University of Oxford
08:29-18:12 Mary’s experiments in living and coming to terms with hierarchy
18:13-25:59How do you accept power/hierarchy and use it for good?
26:00-34:34 Two different types of feminism: interdependence and freedom
34:35-36:53 Freedom and the Family
36:54-40:19 Interlude
40:20-44:29 Motherhood and Liberalism
44:30-50:09 Where do you go with feminism after liberal individualism?
50:10-01:03:04 Men and Post-Christian Patriarchy
01:03:05-01:04:45 Internet Mentors and Real World Relationships
01:04:46 Solutions for feminist interdependence and the question of abortion
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